


Sincerely

by Sifl



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Multi, Other, Sylvain-centric drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21815716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sifl/pseuds/Sifl
Summary: Philanderer, liar, coward, sincerest of knights: Sylvain Jose Gautier. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a loneliness the size of the icy Sreng mountains in his heart; driven by an envy greener than the fields in summertime. Inside his soul rages a war between his desires and his responsibilities that he hasn’t the courage to win.When a conflict grips the continent and divides his friends from his principles, can he choose a side true to himself?
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Mercedes von Martritz, Sylvain Jose Gautier & My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28





	1. The Legacy of the Gautier Heir, Sylvain

Miklan may have left his brother on a mountainside for dead, or pushed him down a well, or hated him with as much subtlety as the blistering sun in the noonday sky, but Sylvain’s legacy was far more vile: he charmed women.

Where Miklan was rough, arrogant, cruel, and bitter, Sylvain was poised, sweet-faced, and cunning. He had a gift for sugar-coating a whole lot of nothing and dominating conversation by prompting court ladies and village girls to talk about themselves. Who they were and what they looked like didn’t matter so long as they chatted and giggled so loudly that nobody, not even Miklan and his barbed, steely resentment, could cut in and separate Sylvain’s noble head from his noble shoulders. Instead, Miklan had no choice but to put on his honorably disgraced public face while they stuffed him and his schemes into corners at perfumed parties and summer festivals, and buried him behind woolen skirts and minks in the winter.

Charming women. Sylvain was good at it. He was good at it, he was practiced at it, and he was secure in knowing that he was a creature no less tasteless than they, as his girlfriends coveted his favor for the same reason Miklan coveted his life: for money, for prestige, for land, for a title. He was Sylvain Jose Gautier, the true and crested heir to the family office and fortune. Miklan and everybody else had to try and fuck him one way or another if they wanted to do anything about it.

Unfortunately for them, he was better at it than they could ever hope to be. Not a soul in all of Fodlan could ruin Sylvain’s chances at love like Sylvain himself. 

He need only wait until whoever he was wooing realized he was playing with them, and then discard the current girl for a new one like a snake shedding skin. Or a new two girls. Or three. Or four. Sylvain was never alone no matter how lonely he was.

New handprints on the cheek and new bruises on the neck marked the passing days of Sylvain’s young life. He was unignorable, incorrigible, undignified, and a million other words grouped together in salacious notoriety. He wore them all like cheap armor, and grinned as beatifically in the face of scandal as he did when the Margrave Gautier finally disowned Miklan for attempted fratricide. Rejection’s backhand stung the same no matter who threw it, or why, and Sylvain would be damned if he put himself in a position to let them think he could actually feel it.

Why not? They were mice and he was a cat, and he dredged up from his black little soul the same satisfaction from ripping out their still-beating hearts as the real animal might from doing the same to its prey: sadistic, messy, fleeting. Sylvain burned through village girls like a candle eating down a wick. Sylvain burned through the goddess’ blessings like a hot coal in dry straw. He burned himself hollow.

At sixteen, he filled his time with more women, more rejection, more nonsense. But he was a snake eating his own tail, and the little world he held together in his coil believed the charade he’d made.

Commoners gossiped about Sylvain’s reputation. The nobility of Faerghus gossiped about his reputation. His best friends gossiped about his reputation behind his back, and bemoaned his behavior to his face. The king of Faerghus approached Sylvain’s father about it after a particularly concerned diatribe from the prince and Count Galatea’s daughter. 

The Margrave Gautier began paying attention to his son. Sylvain philandered with new vigor to escape him the same way he escaped his brother. 

When the king, his father’s liege, died in a slaughter, Sylvain thought he had heard the end of it, but the close of four years of mourning proved the opposite: Sylvain’s father shipped him off to the Garreg Mach Monastery, and the Officer’s Academy at the center of its smothering, holy clutches alongside Prince Dimitri. There, Sylvain would prove himself worthy of his future king, and of the power of his family’s crest. Sylvain would make himself respectable and honorable, said the Margrave Gautier, and strong enough to keep Gautier territory steadfast against the savages of Sreng at the border.

He would grow to take his father’s place as Margrave, marry a noble woman he hated, bear a series of useless heirs to disown until he bore one with a crest, and live the rest of his life perpetuating a cycle he most hated, and hating himself. He would hate and hate and hate and hate until the day he died, and that would be the end of it.

He was Sylvain Jose Gautier, single heir to house Gautier, and he would never love or be loved by anyone, not even himself, because he lacked the courage to try.


	2. New Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain gets ready to start school!

Sylvain had come so far south once before in his youth for a religious festival, but he’d forgotten all about the kind climate and amicable wind. It was a friend he was glad to rediscover. In the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, the wind cut through man and monster alike with a bitter chill and blinding speed. But here in the continent’s unaligned, unifying navel, the breeze shuffling the green leaves overhead was playful, and even welcome. Whatever it was about the northern part of the continent that put the Goddess in a foul enough mood to afflict its weather, this central button of land didn’t share.

Sylvain’s horse, laden with both Sylvain and his things, snorted with appreciation like he had the same thought. Sylvain scratched between the animal’s ears and considered his three mounted companions. Their plain silence utterly bored him, as it had for the past two hours.

“If the professor’s cute, you guys wanna be teacher’s pets?” asked Sylvain, apropos of nothing, and with no particular conversation partner in mind.

Felix answered like he was the only person with a thought that mattered, which had been his opinion of himself since he was about twelve years old and his brother Glenn had died.

“No,” he said. “I’ll pay no such favors at all unless our Professor can prove to me they know anything about strength.”

Felix tossed the bangs of his black hair over his head and looked out at the path ahead of him, but Sylvain knew he was thinking of the swords tucked away in the saddlebags hanging by his horse’s sides. Swords: his obsession, and his crutch. Sylvain shrugged and scratched at the back of his neck while he pretended that he didn’t know why Felix valued swordsmanship. Then, he stared at the lush forest around them for an avenue of conversation that might derail the conversation from its course of becoming a thinly-veiled remembrance of Glenn posing as a discussion of martial strength.

“I dunno,” Sylvain said. “If they’re cute enough, you might want them to show you something new to do with your sword, if you know what I mean.”

The Fraldarius escort behind them covered his laugh with a sneeze. Sylvain turned around on his horse and grinned at him while Felix’s pallor subtly shifted from its standard porcelain to bright pink.

That was Felix: dark-featured, sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, but fragile at heart, like porcelain.

“See? The escort your father sent agrees,” said Sylvain. “Might be good for you. Might make you stop acting like such a—”

“You’re disgusting,” interrupted Ingrid from the back of her borrowed horse, though Sylvain would never dare tell anyone that she’d had to borrow it.

Ingrid was a noble, too, but almost nothing like Felix. While he was brooding and pale, she was open, honest, and constantly sunburnt on her cheeks and nose. She loved the outdoors, and horses, and books about knights and chivalry that made young maidens swoon.

Felix’s nostrils flared with a disgusted snort. 

“Of course he’s disgusting. Was that ever a question?” he said.

“Me? Disgusting? Never,” said Sylvain. “I’m only talking about something completely natural. Like the sun up above our heads and the dirt beneath our—!” 

Ingrid produced a slipper from her bags and tossed it at him. He caught it before it collided with his face.

“Or like Ingrid’s manly strength,” he continued.

“Sylvain!” she growled.

Ingrid loved stories of knights and chivalry, but not because they made her swoon in fantasy of their dashing hero carting her off. No, she wanted to be the knight. She had wanted to be the knight since she was about three years old and realized she could beat back Sylvain and Glenn when they thought to tease Felix. It was her deepest and most obvious desire.

“What? It’s a natural gift!” he said. “It’s one of the many things that makes you unique. Think about it. Some of us get things like charm,” he pointed to himself, “or dashing good looks,” he pointed to himself again, “or—!” 

Ingrid tossed the shoe’s match his way. It hit him squarely in the face, but he caught it when it tumbled into his lap.

“Or well deserved black eyes,” Felix said.

“Perhaps, but now I can tell people I was maimed when heroically defending you from a terrible beast, Felix,” he said, feeling around his skull for a bump, and blinking away any latent dirt from the slipper’s sole. “Which, in a way, is the truth.”

“I have more things in here than shoes, you know,” said Ingrid.

“What, you’re gonna maim me with your underwear next?” challenged Sylvain. “You’ll need to be more creative, because that’s not exactly a first for me.”

Ingrid turned red. “Sylvain!”

“I can defend myself without your help,” huffed Felix. 

He shot a glare towards the escort, whom his father insisted accompany them. 

“I can defend myself without anyone’s help!”

“Aw, come on,” teased Sylvain, desperate to pull Felix’s attention away from shooting death glares at his House’s staff. “If you don’t let me say I can at least do that for you, people will start to think you don’t love me!”

“I don’t,” said Felix, puffing himself up like the self-conscious, self-superior twelve-year-old boy he still was inside.

“Yeah, you do,” said Sylvain, grinning, because deep down, he was also still twelve.

“No, I don’t,” said Felix.

“You love me,” said Sylvain. “I’m still the one you come crying to when you’re upset.”

“I do not!” argued Felix, pinkening even more as he reached his limit. “I don’t do that anymore!”

“What! Oh, I’m wounded,” said Sylvain, backing off.

Instead, he turned to Ingrid with a roguish wink.

“But you still love me, right?”

Ingrid rolled her eyes, but gave the tiniest smirk. 

“Absolutely not,” she said.

Sylvain wailed to the sky and clutched his chest.

“What! Such betrayal! My two closest friends in the whole world have rebuked me, and so soon before the fated first day of school! Oh! Without a dedicated, premeditated friend group, my peers will rip me to social shreds! They’ll pierce me in popular polls! Eviscerate me in extracurriculars! What have I done to deserve this?! My budding social life has died before it began, and me with it! Oh! Oh! What a world!”

“Sylvain, shut up,” said Felix, the flushed sting of receiving too much teasing still fresh on his cheeks.

Sylvain shut up. For about twenty seconds, anyway. 

He noisily inhaled two lungfuls of the fresh, loamy air. It was nothing like the scent of frost-bitten pine from his home in the north. The difference was both heartening and terrifying, like how an open and unfamiliar pasture must appear to a domesticated cow cooped up in a barn for too long.

“Smells great, doesn’t it?” he said, exhaling dramatically. “Like new beginnings!”

“Shut up,” said Ingrid and Felix, in unison, with emphasis.

Sylvain mock pouted, and scratched his horse’s head with an easy grin as the line of trees before them parted to reveal the austere peaks of the central mountains, and the home of highest authority on the continent sitting atop them: the Church of Seiros at Garreg Mach Monastery. 

The continent of Fódlan was divided in three by a mountain chain cutting in from the north before turning course for the western ocean, and the east-west flow of the Airamid River. The monastery atop the towering mass of mountains at the center of the continent served as the religious, political, and geographical heart of Fódlan. Beneath its omnipresent watch, the borders of the three nations held in place along nature’s boundaries.

Great stone walls jutted from the undulating green mountains like ridges of teeth from a beast’s blunted gums. Along their crown ran a series of banners alternating between blue and silver, and then red and gold that shimmered as they flapped in the balmy breeze. Sylvain’s eyes followed their path up, and up, and up to the highest peak until he found their destination. The monastery’s stone spires rose into the mellow blue sky like the arms of a headdress; like the entire vista beneath it was the body of an ancient queen sitting at the center of the world.

All things considered, Sylvain supposed Garreg Mach was pretty fine for a mass of dirt and stone. Not exactly a great conversationalist or a good dinner date, but she was pretty all the same.

“So, anyway, do you think any of the nuns are cute?” asked Sylvain, and earned himself a duet of beleaguered groans.

\---

The climb to the Monastery was long and grueling, but compared to the watchtower stairways and rampart walls Sylvain was practically raised upon, it was nothing. The path cascaded from the mountaintop to the valley in gentle zigzags of sloped stone roads meant for carts, livestock, armies, and war machines to traverse in the different seasons of Garreg Mach’s history, and Sylvain and his friends made the trek the same as every other kind of pilgrim seeking the Church’s guidance. 

The residents of the village at the base of the mountain waved from the ground as their party made the climb. Sylvain and Ingrid waved back, and Sylvain also winked if the villager happened to be a pretty lady, which earned him a pinch from Ingrid if she happened to catch him. She always caught him. By the time they reached the monastery gates, his skin was riddled with angry red marks, like a pox had suddenly ravaged his entire body.

All the while, Garreg Mach seemed to grow taller, and wider, and bigger than Sylvain judged at first glance. The monastery itself stood within a fortress, but the spires and buttresses hanging off the side and marrying the structure to the mountain below made it look palatial rather than martial. Intricate reliefs, mosaics, and carvings of the Church’s various crests and saints trailed along the edges of the building and stared out at the forest and village below, and the Crest of Saint Seiros appeared like a stamp in the stone path leading them upwards. Only when Sylvain and his party encroached upon the wide iron doors of the front gate did it resemble a fort, with a dirt and cobblestone courtyard hosting a melange of shops, livestock, and crowds. Leather, fabrics, and animal pelts layered the roofs of the many tents and stalls lining the perimeter. Despite its placement as the entry to a divine complex, It smelled exactly like every other village square: like ash, hay, sweat, and with a hint of horseshit.

A gaggle of church nuns received them in the monastery’s bustling courtyard, and after a polite, rushed greeting, flocked around them with a welcome packet listing their names. Sylvain found himself with a room key and a map, and the cheerful assurance that any luggage they shipped ahead, textbooks they required, and uniforms tailored based on their measurements were already in their rooms. A set of stablehands appeared to relieve them of their horses.

They were so quick that Sylvain barely had the chance to feed them a few lines. Ingrid shot him glares for each line he dropped, as did Felix. Ergo, mission accomplished.

Sylvain looked up at the entrance to Garreg Mach’s main hall. White marble. Towering. The red circle in the center of the candle-flame-shaped crest of Saint Seiros stared down at him like the eye of a massive creature.

Crests. Fodlan’s fixation. Saint Seiros was a warrior touched - some said literally as well as metaphysically - by the Goddess creator, and given the power to defeat armies in the form of that Crest. It appeared upon her skin, and exhibited magical and superhuman capabilities that the continent still marvels at today. The Goddess also selected other chosen individuals to mark with different, lesser Crests, but Seiros was always closest to the divine, and the most highly regarded. Bloodlines carrying Crests formed the basis for the nobility, and the nobility upheld the sanctity of the Church, as well as its will, for they, and it, were sacred.

And Sylvain thought that was masturbatory. The lauding of the Crest as anything more than a glorified birthmark was a way for the social elite to call themselves “elite”, and to control people and rank them based on the most arbitrary of systems. But saying so was heresy, since Crests were gifts of the Goddess, so Sylvain kept his mouth shut.

A smiling, broad-faced knight with a sunburnt nose and mousey hair approached them with a spry, excited step. His gleaming silver armor displayed the Seiros Crest, which was a sure sign that he was higher in rank than the average footsoldier.

The Knights of Seiros did not necessarily have any Crests besides the one on the badge the Archbishop gave them. However, because of that badge, they were elites, and often acted with the same authority as the Church. They served the Archbishop directly, and many considered them extensions of her.

“Oh! New students! Welcome!” the knight said, throwing out his arms like he might hug them. “It’s so much fun watching all the new students arrive!”

“Oh, um, yes,” said Ingrid. “Thank you. I am Ingrid Brandlt Galatea. With me is Felix Hugo Fraldarius, and Sylvain Jose Gautier.”

The names. They always had to throw out their full names.

The knight clapped his hands.

“Oh! From the Kingdom. I should have known from all the royal blue in your dress. Well, I’m Alois, and I hope that my presence can make your first evening at the monastery a knight to remember! Eh? Eh? Get it?”

“O-oh. Oh!” said Ingrid, getting it.

“We get it,” said Felix at the exact same time, with a roll of his eyes. “How do we get to our rooms?”

Sylvain wondered if he should slap Felix on the back of the head for so blatantly disrespecting a member of the highest authority in Fodlan in his own monastery, or if Ingrid would do it before Alois took it upon himself to discipline Felix personally. He looked between the three of them to read the situation as quickly as he could.

There was no need. Alois didn’t scold Felix in the slightest. Instead, he deflated like a giant, armored balloon, and turned towards the rest of the complex.

“Yes, yes, I can take you to the dormitories,” moped Alois. “And to think, I thought that was a good one that time…”

“No, it was,” assured Sylvain. “Felix just doesn’t have a sense of humor, is all.”

Felix glared at him. Sylvain smiled beatifically back. In front of them, Alois’s shoulders straightened like he’d been doused with a bucket of cold water.

“Oh! Is that so?” Alois said, turning around and fixing Felix with a watery, doe-eyed stare. “That’s… terrible. Just terrible. I’m so sorry to hear that; that must be devastating in your daily life. To lack a sense of humor is just terrible.”

Then, Alois grinned.

“Lucky for you, I knight be able to help!”

Ingrid looked like she’d just walked in on one of Sylvain’s more risque dates. That is to say: mortified.

“That was the same pun!” scolded Felix, who now emanated the same energy as a hissing cat who’d been denied breakfast, lunch, and a gentle scratch upon the head for bringing his master a fresh, still-squirming mouse.

“Oh, good! You can at least recognize my puns! Wonderful! A great first step, Felix! A great first step! Now!”

Alois turned around and spread out his arms again with an air of theatricality. His short cape billowed behind him in a dramatic puff.

“For the grand tour! We go through the entry hall to reach our true destination: The dormitories! And once you freshen up, the dining hall is ready to welcome you with a new student mixer! Pretty snazzy, huh?”

“Wait,” said Sylvain. “With alcohol?”

Alois laughed. “No, no. Some of the students are as young as fourteen, so we can’t have that.” he winked at Sylvain. “At least, not openly. Wouldn’t do to turn the opening celebration of the school year into a drunken hall. That’s for the closing celebration, young man!”

Sylvain decided he liked Alois already.

“Alright,” he said. “Any girls?”

Felix groaned.

Alois nodded. “Well, the other female students, yes, I should think so.”

Sylvain grinned.

\---

Sylvain’s second-floor room at the very end of the hallway didn’t hold much in the way of sights: a bed, a dresser, a vanity, a closet, a chamberpot, a fresh pitcher of water, and a floor rug in the garish royal blue of the Kingdom accompanied by a pile of luggage and books, including the academy’s standard-issue uniforms for every season. He went through them with a bored eye. Two bleached shirts, black trousers for winter and shorts for summer, one gold-trimmed black vest, one gold-trimmed black jacket, one khaki vest, one khaki set of pants, and two pairs of boots. Sure. He changed out of his clothes and into one of the uniform sets, and then strode out the door with a knock and cheery “see ya!” outside both Ingrid and Felix’s dorms as he passed by. Ingrid fumbled to answer, but Felix didn’t. Shocker. 

Irrelevant. He’d see them when he’d see them, and he wanted to get a chance to scope out the other students without any hangers-on.

Sylvain hurried down the stone dormitory steps and strode down the dirt and cobblestone path outlining the monastery’s impressive greenhouse and inner lake in search of the reception crowd. It wasn’t hard to find, considering that the dining hall emptied out onto a raised stone porch overlooking the lake.

He approached the first girl he saw: a skinny creature with big grey eyes and nervous, fidgeting fingers. She held the collar of her uniform bundled around her like a blanket and was glancing to and fro like a wallflower too shy to ask for a dance.

“Hi there!” said Sylvain, walking up to her. “My name’s Sylvain Jose Gautier, and I couldn’t help but--”

Immediately, the girl screamed like she’d been struck, and then ran away in the direction of the first floor dormitories as if pursued by bears.

Sylvain blinked, and then turned around to see if anyone else had just seen that. Someone had. Two someones had. Two pale someones, female and male, about his age and in familiar student uniforms: one with long, white hair and pale eyes, and another with jet-black hair and sallow, sunken cheeks pronouncing a bone structure that could cut through wyvern leather.

“Uh,” said Sylvain intelligently, faltering before he put on a new smile. “Is she okay?”

“That was Bernadetta von Varley,” said the woman, with a diction so haughty, crisp, and well-bred it made Sylvain look like the village drunk on a particularly bawdy afternoon. “She frightens easily. Please pay it no mind.”

“Ah, I see,” said Sylvain, regaining his composure and pushing his bangs out of his eyes. “Well, nevermind her, then. My name is Syl-”

“Sylvain Jose Gautier,” said the man, with a deep voice full of constant annoyance, petulant superiority, and the exacting diction only a sociopath might cultivate. “Save yourself the trouble of repeating yourself.”

“Well, alright, then,” Sylvain said, still smiling as he removed any attention at all from the man and focused on his companion. “Might I ask your name, lovely lady? It’s rare to have the privilege of speaking with a creature as radiant as you are. Perhaps if you’re as new to the Monastery as I am, we could take a private tour together.”

She tilted her chin, and her arrogance grew with her perceived height. She was like a porcelain doll: pale, pretty, delicate, creepy, and, if Sylvain’s first impression was correct, an absolute pain in the ass to try and do anything with besides marvel at her glossy finish. 

“I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, princess of the Adrestian Empire,” she said, and Sylvain nearly shit a brick. 

This one was a little above his pay grade. Sylvain was not of her court, not of her clout, and definitely not in a good position to offer to spirit away the famously hard-ass heir of a hard-ass neighboring nation. He probably should have bowed, or showed deference, or not hit on her, or not made an insinuation that they could go make out somewhere on campus. 

Oh, well. In for a copper, in for a gold.

“It is an honor to meet you, m’lady,” said Sylvain with a bow. He reached out and brought the back of her white-gloved hand to his mouth for a kiss.

“Thank you,” said Edelgard, without a hint of self-awareness. She pulled her hand away and gestured neatly to her companion.

“This is Hubert von Vestra, my loyal retainer and servant.”

Hubert bowed, even as he leered at Sylvain with sallow eyes.

“Great to meet you,” said Sylvain, barely giving him any attention at all. “So tell me, Lady Edelgard, is this your first time at the monastery, or do you--?”

Sylvain felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder. He turned his head and found Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blayddid, his lord, his liege, and his dear childhood friend standing at his side. While Dimitri was a whole head shorter than Sylvain, his casual strength still knocked him off-kilter until they were about the same height.

Even before King Lambert died and Dimitri’s responsibility as an heir of authority was not so crushingly, suffocatingly imminent, Dimitri was aggravatingly straight-laced, polite, and concerned with Sylvain’s antics. He was worse than Ingrid when it came to heading off Sylvain’s affairs, and worse than Felix at subtlety. Once, when he was about eight and Sylvain about ten, he punched Sylvain in the stomach when Sylvain so much as winked at one of King Lambert’s guests, a girl about their age. Sylvain was so baffled that he waited at least three days before insinuating that Dimitri was in love with her in retaliation.

Dimitri smiled, first at Edelgard, and then at Sylvain. His bright blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes offset the stern disapproval Sylvain knew was lurking behind them. 

“Pardon me for interrupting, but is Sylvain bothering you?”

“Ah,” said Edelgard, brightening. “Dimitri. I was hoping to speak with you once again this evening.” Her small, prim smile looked out of place on her stiff face.

“Oh?”

“Yes. I thought I might request that you, myself, and Claude of House Riegan spend tomorrow evening camping at the base of the mountain. I thought it might be a good chance for the house leaders to fraternize before the year begins.”

“Ah,” said Dimitri, smiling sincerely now. “Yes, that sounds like a wonderful--”

“House leaders and their escorts, right?” said Sylvain, smiling too, but with less flirtatious ease and more uptight suspicion, like someone had just stepped on his toe and he was determined not to show it.

Edelgard frowned.

“No,” she said. “I had not planned to bring Hubert or anyone else with me, as that would defeat the purpose of the trip. We would be in sight of the monastery, so I doubt there would be any danger, if that is your concern.”

That was exactly Sylvain’s concern. King Lambert and Glenn died on the same day and in the same place: on the road en route to the capital across the Duscur territory in the north. A group ambushed the caravan housing the royal family and their retainers. It was supposed to be a routine, standard trip with no real risks and no deeper political uncertainty, but everyone but Dimitri wound up dead.

Meanwhile, what Edelgard proposed was sending the Imperial princess, the Kingdom’s prince, and the Alliance’s next leader into the relative wilderness with no protection or point of contact should something happen.

Sylvain’s tight smile loosened only to open his mouth and politely tell her that was a terrible idea, but he was surprised when someone else did it for him.

“Lady Edelgard,” said Dedue, who must have been trailing behind Dimitri the entire time, “with respect, I believe Sylvain may have a point. Should tragedy strike at an inopportune moment, your vulnerability would cause not only personal grief, but massive complications across the continent.”

Dedue was a massive man, and the only remnant of Duscur allowed to walk in the presence of Faerghus’ nobility- and only by Dimitri’s explicit command. Dedue was a target of suspicion, xenophobia, and hatred from nearly the entire Kingdom because everyone believed his people solely and completely responsible for the deaths of the King, which was idiotic, because the immediate aftermath of the incident all but annhialated the entire race. The few survivors went into hiding, or into social exile much the way sparks leap for the cold, dark, unforgiving unknown rather than be extinguished when a deluge of water smothers their mother flame. Dimitri and Sylvain had never really talked about it, but Dimitri’s dogged defense of Dedue showed that the son of Gautier and his Prince shared the same mind: Duscur as a whole was probably chosen to take the fall for the machinations of other nobles in completely unrelated territories. But that opinion didn’t exactly grant Dedue the power to do or say whatever the hell he wanted. It merely saved him from being killed in broad daylight, and gave him permission to feel awkward and out of place in the massive, primarily white crowds of the capital. 

Why Dedue chose to endure his own personal hell at the castle at Fhirdiad, Sylvain had no clue. But he was loyal to Dimitri and Dimitri was loyal to him, and that was all Sylvain really cared about.

“Thank you, Dedue,” said Sylvain. “Glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks this is crazy.”

Dimitri tilted his head and gave a fond, if exasperated smile.

“I believe you are both worrying too much.”

“Yes,” said Edelgard. “Please. There is not a more secure place in Fodlan than Garreg Mach. Besides, we are not helpless children. Should something happen, we can defend ourselves.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sylvain, “but it would deny me the pleasure of making myself useful to one so beautiful as yourself!”

Hubert, who until that moment had been looming over Edelgard’s shoulder like an undead lawn ornament, suddenly came to life with a sudden, punctuated breath.

“Sylvain,” he asked, “I have a question about something. May I have a word with you?”

Hubert was in love with his lady. Sylvain was calling it now. Hubert was in love with Edelgard, and he’d reached his limit of watching Sylvain’s obstinate, intentionally tone-deaf flirting. Sylvain smiled like he didn’t know he was about to get taken behind the greenhouse and gutted like a fish by the creepiest man he’d ever laid eyes on.

“Sure!” he said, already moving towards the greenhouse doors and rolling up his sleeves to better punch Hubert in his pale, serpentine face, should it come to that. “Love to!”

Hubert followed, and stopped when he and Sylvain were just out of Edelgard and Dimitri’s sight. The sun was just beginning to set, and the long, diagonal shadow of the dormitories to the west made Hubert’s imposing gloom grow as it enveloped him.

“Do you have any idea how to address someone of a higher station than you, or do you just prattle on like an unschooled whelp because it’s all you know how to do?” asked Hubert, with an even, superior stare.

Sylvain lifted his hands in a sign of mock surrender. “Hey! Easy now, Hubert. We’re all friends, here. She’s a student of the Academy, I’m a student of the Academy, and you’re a student of the Academy. You get it? Right now, we’re all equals. Yesterday? Not so. After we graduate? Also not so. But that’s not where we are today.” He grinned, cheekily. “And someone should tell Edelgard she’s beautiful and mean it, you know. I’m doing her a service, really. If I didn’t, she’d be forced to hear that kind of flattery from people who just want political favors, and never know if it was really true or not! She should experience this kind of thing at least once in her life, you know.”

Hubert’s expression didn’t change, but his sallow, hazel eyes gave the impression that he thought Sylvain a bug and himself an elephant. Overall, Sylvain thought he did well in terms of labeling Sylvain a creep, but he lacked the self-awareness to realize that he himself was just as much of one, albeit in a different way.

Then, Hubert chuckled to himself like this whole conversation was some kind of joke.

“Incredible. I can’t believe the Kingdom would allow one of its elite to comport themselves in such a manner and disgrace their precious, crested nobility so openly. So wantonly.”

Sylvain’s grin dampened. “Uh-huh.” He tilted his head. “You got a Crest, Hubert?”

“A Crest is irrelevant to my position,” said Hubert, tossing his head higher.

“So, you don’t have a Crest.”

“No. But that is hardly your business.”

Hubert, Crestless, and still a recognized heir to his House. Miklan was demoted the moment Sylvain was born. Nothing in this world was created equal, it seemed.

Sylvain sneered. “Then it’s not really your business to talk like you know anything about how that kind of thing works in Faerghus.”

“It’s my business to see that those who approach Lady Edelgard uphold a standard of respect,” said Hubert.

“And it’s my business to keep Dimitri safe,” countered Sylvain, smiling anew and pretending he meant it. “So why’d you pull me away when I was giving good council, Hubert? Do you really think it is a good idea to send the future leaders of the nations into the woods at night, alone?”

“I pulled you away to discuss your repeated disrespect towards Lady Edelgard,” said Hubert, glowering.

“Are you sure?” asked Sylvain. “Because it doesn’t seem like it to me. If you’ll excuse me,” he said, spinning on his heel to return to Dimitri, and then return Dimitri to the dining hall, where Edelgard couldn’t try to talk him into any more bad decisions. Instead, Sylvain could do his best to talk him into some bad decisions, and maybe pick up one of his own at the same time, too.

Hubert watched him go, eyes narrowed and thin face puckered like he’d stuffed a whole lemon in there.

\---

The rest of the evening was no great success. Dimitri was annoyingly, aggravatingly, squeaky-clean in all of his interactions with every man, woman, or child he met that night, and his affability paired with Dedue’s ever-present presence sanitized almost all of Sylvain’s. It was enough to make Sylvain scream, and he almost did when Ingrid showed up on his other side and inadvertently escorted him about the room while excitedly catching up with Dimitri when she wasn’t shooting death glares at Dedue.

Ingrid hated Dedue. Sylvain didn’t have the emotional energy to get into it with her that Dedue was in no way responsible for Glenn’s death, but he didn’t have the emotional energy to get into it with anyone about anything related to Glenn at all, including that Felix looked exactly like him, and in recent years, acted a whole lot like him, too. Aloof bastard.

Growing up, Felix was a crybaby. A tagalong. A sweet little brother who pouted whenever he wasn’t involved in whatever game everyone else was playing. He wanted so much to be included. The sick part was, he still did, he just wanted everyone and everything to come to him all of the time, and then have the fun of acting like he didn’t like the attention.

As it happened, Felix showed up to the festivities, but he took one glance at Dimitri and planted himself against a wall on the opposite side of the room. Sylvain was fairly certain he didn’t speak to anyone the entire night long, except maybe the nun serving food. Felix hadn’t been able to bring himself to say anything to Dimitri besides insults and acerbic comments since Glenn’s death four years ago.

They were a shitshow. The five of them together were a total shitshow. Sylvain enjoyed being with any one of them at any time, including Dedue whom he barely knew, but in any combination of them totalling more than three, they were an absolute, Goddess-forsaken mess. Hubert was right, and he didn’t even know the half of it, that dead-fish-eyed fuck.

Fuck!

But they all got through it without killing one another or anyone else, somehow, until the Archbishop herself appeared to congenially wish them all good night. Then, they and all the other students filed out into the courtyard to make the slow journeys to their rooms. Dedue parted from them first, as his room was on the first floor. Felix made himself scarce on his own some point earlier in the evening.

“You know,” said Dimitri, after he and Sylvain wished Ingrid a good night and parted with her on the dormitory steps, “I think I am going to go with Edelgard and Claude tomorrow night. It should be fun.”

Sylvain winced. “It’s not a good idea.”

“What is it you are worried about, Sylvain?” asked Dimitri.

“Oh,” he said, ambling up the stairs and half-turning to Dimitri like this was in any way a casual conversation. “You know. Things. Stuff. Your death in another ambush, the potential upheaval of the Blaidydd family. Mundane stuff like that.”

“You’re overthinking this, my friend.” said Dimitri, following him. “Still, it is good to see you.”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Dimitri.”

“You know, you could still stand to be more polite with Edelgard. She probably doesn’t remember you, so I don’t think she found your re-introduction very funny.”

“Huh?” Sylvain turned to look at Dimitri. “Remember me? When did we--?”

He remembered. The King’s guest, a slight girl with mousy brown hair. Dimitri, with his hands shaking just after hitting Sylvain in the stomach, and with a small, blue-hilted dagger meant just for her clutched in his hands.

“That’s Edelgard?! That was Edelgard?! Your little girlfriend was--?”

“Hush!” scolded Dimitri, elbowing Sylvain in the ribs.

He’d probably only meant it to be hard enough to keep Sylvain quiet, but it almost sent him into the opposite wall. He’d probably have a bruise there in the morning.

“I’d appreciate you not making that public,” said Dimitri. “It doesn’t matter anymore. She doesn’t remember it, anyway”

Sylvain cleared his throat. “I mean, uh, I see.”

The two of them walked along in silence for a few more strides. Dimitri’s embarrassed, awkward mood fell over them like a blanket, which made Sylvain feel awkward and embarrassed, too.

“Say,” said Sylvain, desperate to cut the silence. “Where’s your room?”

“At the end of the hall. Why?”

Sylvain started to sweat. “Because mine’s at the end of the hall,” he said, as the two of them reached the end of the hall.

“Oh?” said Dimitri, reaching for the door immediately next to Sylvain’s. “Looks like we’re neighbors, then!” He smiled, placid and innocent. “It’s just like when I used to stay in the Gautier complex!”

Sylvain’s laugh might have sounded sincere. He hoped it did, because the only thing his brain was dredging up was panic. How thin was the wall between their rooms? How much noise could Sylvain make before Dimitri heard him? How was Sylvain supposed to get away with anything?! 

He watched as Dimitri wished him a good night and retired into his room. Then, he threw himself into his own and mapped out circles on the carpet as he tried to figure this out.

There was a window just outside his door, with a ledge he was certain he could walk upon if he put his mind to it, and probably a way up for him to sneak visitors inside without anyone, including Dimitri, seeing them if he was fast. But the wall. The wall!

Sylvain hurried to the wall, and held his finger over it. If he was going to test it this way, he needed a good excuse in case Dimitri asked why he was banging on the walls. He took a deep breath and tried to think of the secret codes the two of them and Glenn came up with whenever they’d visit - one to ask to come in, one to wish good night, one to ask if anyone was in there, one to say yes, another to say no, one to ask to get outside help, and another one to ask them to come in immediately because they were in trouble, or because Miklan was in the room.

Sylvain tapped out a confident “good night”, repeated it for good measure, and then waited with baited breath.

About a minute later, Dimitri answered loud and clear with the same rhythm.

Dammit.

—

Fire. Everywhere. It crawled up his legs and into his armor, and his flesh cooked and sizzled within the metal. He screamed. His friends screamed. Around him, the capital city of Fhirdiad burned red-gold and buzzed with crackling ash. The market he and Ingrid used to dart from stall to stall in search of the best treats went up in smoke as a huge, looming, bestial shadow cut through the town silhouette and, with a great, yawning breath, shot out white flame onto a group of soldiers standing beneath.

He saw Ingrid cut through the ashen air on a white horse he’d never seen before, and balked when an arrow cut through her neck and erupted out the other side in a spray of viscera. She convulsed and fell limply off her horse into the flames below, and he screamed in unison as he fell to the ground, still burning, still writhing, and still smelling his own charred flesh in his helmet.

A girl he’d never seen before ran towards him, her white gown turned bloody red in the firelight, and she mouthed something to him once, twice, three times. He couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand anything. But when she pointed, in the direction of the massive, winged white beast billowing fire over the ruined buildings, he knew where to look.

He saw Edelgard, with her helmet off and blood running down her snow while hair. She charged towards the beast with a scream, and he found himself running towards her, lance in hand, still smelling of cooked meat, still burning in his armor, but absolutely certain that he had to do this- he had to kill her.

—

Sylvain awoke with a gasp and looked around his humble dormitory for the source of the fire, for Edelgard. But it wasn’t there. There was no beast nor fire nor Fhirdiad, and he was whole and safe in his nightclothes, tucked in his bed at Garreg Mach.

Then, he did hear something. Moans, and muffled cries. He turned towards the wall he and Dimitri shared, and then pressed his ear against it.

“Stop,” came Dimitri’s muffled voice, dry from sleep, and thick from nightmares. “Please. Please. Please. Please… don’t kill…. them… kill… please… I’m sorry…”

Sylvain tapped his head against the wall once, twice, three times, and then decided waking Dimitri from the nightmares he’d had for four years wouldn’t do him any more good than it did back when Sylvain tried to wake him when they’d only plagued him for two. His was a cycle he had to break on his own, and wake up from by his own power.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof! Thank you for sitting through the setup. That’s the one bad thing about canon divergence stories- sometimes they require some setup and game info rehash before they really get going.
> 
> Still! Thanks again! Really excited to get going. Hope you enjoyed it so far!


	3. The Library

As it happened, Dimitri and his camping party were ambushed by bandits. Edelgard almost died. Sylvain had the joy of learning of the incident the next morning when Ingrid practically burst down his door and excitedly nattered away about how she was so worried, and how she couldn’t believe Dimitri would do this without telling them, and about how she couldn’t believe they might have lost him, too, and how Felix stormed off into his room when he heard the news and she wished that the two of them would just talk like they used to, and--

“Ingrid,” Sylvain interrupted her, still in his sleeping shirt and underwear and his hair a flaming red, unkempt heap on the top of his head, “was he hurt?”

“...No,” she said.

He flicked his eyes sideways, towards Dimitri’s door.

“Is he in his room?”

“No,” said Ingrid. “Unlike you, the rest of us got up early to train instead of, well, what were you doing? Partying all night? You look awful,” she said. “Are you sick?”

Sylvain blinked unevenly at her as he arose from the smoky haze of last night’s sleep. “Yeah. Sick of your shit.”

He’d dreamed of fire, for the second night in a row. Fire in his bedroom, fire in the streets, fire blazing throughout the courtyard of the monastery, fire blazing through the fields. He’d never seen someone burn to death - come close, but not to death- but he certainly dreamed about it in vivid detail. It was like someone had opened up his head and decided to raze whatever else he might have dreamed about.

Ingrid punched him in the arm. He jumped back behind the doorway and clutched it like she’d just taken a chunk out of it, and not left a minor bruise.

“Ow!”

“Dimitri almost died!” she said. “Can’t you take this seriously?! Do you not care?!”

The news might have landed upon him differently if he wasn’t fresh from his own personal nightmare, or if Dimitri had actually died, or if Sylvain hadn’t already taken the time to come to terms with the real possibility their future king had a death wish that Sylvain nor anyone else could do anything about. But Sylvain could barely register what day it was, Dimitri wasn’t dead, and Sylvain already knew that Dimitri couldn’t possibly suffer any more if he was, and that was a blessing no matter how much Sylvain hated it.

“Ingrid, of course I care. I’m the one who told him not to go.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “You mean, you knew?”

“I was standing next to him when he got invited. Dedue and I told him it was a bad idea, but you know Dimitri. He thought it was good and magnanimous and a great idea, so I dropped it because there wasn’t any changing his mind. Really, considering how eager he is for any excuse to not be alone in his room at night, I’m surprised he doesn’t join me on more of my escapades.”

Somehow, his answer only made Ingrid all the angrier. Her fair cheeks puffed out and reddened throughout his explanation, and her fists clenched at her sides.

“And you didn’t tell me?!”

“It wasn’t your business,” he said. “There was no point in getting you worked up over something you can’t do anything about.”

“I might’ve!” she burst out, alerting everyone in the hallway to her white-knuckled fear. “I might’ve been able to stop him!”

Heads poked out of doors and turned to face them. While Sylvain knew that, in reality, his hallmates had best get used to women screaming at him in his doorway, this particular scene was not one he cared to share with the world. This was private and for Ingrid, not for his weekly plaything, and Sylvain didn’t care to tarnish her reputation in the minds of those who didn’t realize they were practically siblings.

“Dimitri could have been killed!” Ingrid went on, oblivious to the scene she’d created.

“Ingrid,” soothed Sylvain, holding out his hands like he might be able to hold back her feelings for her, “Ingrid, the thing is, he wasn’t, so it’s okay! Okay? He’s fine. Everything is fine. Here. Do you want to step in for a moment, or--?”

“I can’t believe you!” Ingrid said, brushing his hand away. “I could have talked him out of it. I could have gone with him! I,” she said, turning and holding her head, “I--!”

The late morning light filtered in through the eastern windows and cast a dreamy sheen over the monastery’s black stone walls and stained wooden floors. Even with her sunburnt nose and flushing cheeks, Ingrid appeared like a spirit made of light as tears threatened to spill out of the corners of her eyes.

“Ingrid,” Sylvain tried, with his hand falling limply to his side just short of reaching her shoulder.

Ingrid turned away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice suddenly even. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have gotten onto you like that. You’re right. Dimitri would have done whatever he wanted.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to be worried,” said Sylvain.

Ingrid shook her head.

“Ingrid,” Sylvain repeated, stepping out the door after her.

She held up a hand.

“Yes, but I shouldn’t take it out on you,” she said, and smiled.

It was a horrible thing. It was beautiful, captivating, and absolutely fake, just like most of Sylvain’s. It didn’t suit her face at all. But she put it on for the world to see like a smokescreen, and then retreated down the hallway to her room with a purposeful gait, totally oblivious to the other students retreating into their rooms before she caught them snooping.

Sylvain watched her go, stunned, and then scrubbed at the back of his neck when her door finally closed. He spun around on his heel and into his room in search of a pair of pants, and then hurried out the door before anyone else came knocking, or worse, before anyone outside could start whispering about what just happened within his earshot. He set a course for the quietest and most secluded place he could think of: the library.

\---

The library was a beautiful antique of a room, even by the standards of the larger antique housing it. Polished wooden bookshelves spanned the walls from floor to ceiling, and a well-worn, but cared-for staircase carried hopeful scholars between floors to reach the tops of the shelves alongside a series of rolling ladders. Chandeliers and candlesticks, free of dust and cobwebs from top to bottom, lit up the room like a holiday display. The library was bright, clean, and well-visited, like the libraries in Fhirdiad, only bigger, grander, and with more information than the records of the same three wars. 

And, in terms of people, it was also about as barren as he’d hoped. The only other souls inside that Sylvain could see were the librarian, who was cloistered behind the circulation desk on the second floor, a white-haired girl who looked no older than fourteen, and a famously gorgeous, dark-haired woman about his age. In fact, her beauty was so famous, he knew her by name before either of them had been introduced. The day may get better yet.

Dorothea Arnault, the songstress Sylvain had only seen from Mittelfrank Opera Company posters shipped from the Empire and read about in the scant theater reviews that made it to the northern edge of the continent, was even prettier in person. She was also even more unapproachable than anyone might assume a star to be, and more frigid than even the most guarded of her characters. Sylvain would know- he read about all of them, and chatted up the few travelling Empire nobles and merchants travelling through Fhirdiad about her roles whenever he visited and their paths crossed. He knew her career the same way he knew her predecessors’, including the famous Manuela, who now taught at the Officer’s Academy and oversaw the student infirmary. 

He’d yet to actually meet Manuela in person, but he knew she was here somewhere, and he had a space reserved on a show poster for her autograph, just as he did for Dorothea’s, as well.

“Hello, miss Dorothea. I don’t believe we’ve met. Mind if I--?”

She slammed her book shut before Sylvain even had a chance to finish his proposition, and fixed her emerald-green eyes upon him with a glare.

The white-haired girl across the library fixed them both with an even more scathing one at the sudden noise, but Sylvain paid her no mind. Neither did Dorothea.

“Sylvain Jose Gautier,” Dorothea said, voice low, and with a dangerously false smile. “I see now is the time for us to finally be acquainted. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Wow. Already?” Sylvain leaned in and kept his voice low, too. “Classes haven’t even started yet. I haven’t even been here a full two days!”

“Yes, already,” said Dorothea. “You made yourself quite a nuisance for all of the girls in the dining hall almost all day yesterday. I saw.”

She crossed her arms, and tossed her head back. Her chest heaved with the motion, and Sylvain wasn’t surprised to find that she’d artfully unbuttoned her uniform jacket to best show off her decollete. 

Dorothea’s real life was a story as well known as those in her operas: a rags-to-riches tale, and an ephemeral one, too. He suspected the sparkling ruby and gold earrings glinting in the library’s candlelight against her long, dark hair were costume pieces, and not the real thing. If she wanted to afford her tuition, she probably made sure to make as many friends as she could by any means possible. Sylvain was inclined to hate her the same way he hated himself.

But where was the fun in that?

“What do you want?” Dorothea asked, when Sylvain didn’t come forward with a defense for his actions.

“Your autograph,” said Sylvain, sincerely. 

Dorothea’s eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

“Yes,” he said. “But I didn’t know I’d find you here, so I don’t have the poster with me. Or a pen. So that’s kind of a lost cause.”

Dorothea looked him up and down, and straightened back in her chair. Sylvain noticed the title of the book she was reading - Loog and the Maiden of Wind. Ingrid’s favorite.

“That the inspiration for a new show?” asked Sylvain, gesturing towards the book. 

“No,” said Dorothea, pulling it close. “It was recommended by a friend.”

“Hm. Not surprising. Fhirdiad and its culturally favored tales rarely get adapted for the stage. Theater is more the Empire’s strength. The north lacks the artistic soul, if you will.”

Dorothea pursed her lips and sized Sylvain up. He drank in the attention like a shrivelled sponge.

“You’ve never been to the opera house in Enbarr, have you? You’re from the north. I’d assume you’d be familiar with me from taking your many unfortunate dates to see my shows, but that can’t be the case.”

“I did take girls to shows, sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy them without a date. I love theater.”

It helped that Miklan and his father hated going.

Dorothea sneered.

“Oh, really? Name three shows. And they can’t be The Phantom of the Opera House or The Unfortunates. Everyone knows those shows by name. She furrowed her brows. “And Feline Grace. I’m so tired of hearing about that show.”

Sylvain shrugged, and leaned against the polished wooden table. She thought she had him all figured out. And maybe she did, but not about this.

“Okay,” he said, holding up a fist and then extending a finger for each show he rattled off. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Monastery, My Fair Duchess, and Miss Deirdru. But my favorite is Stratagem.”

That got Dorothea’s attention. She sat up straighter in her chair. “You actually liked Stratagem? Nobody in Enbarr liked it at all. They hated that the man from the Alliance won.”

“They changed the plot so that the winning challenger was from Fhirdiad, but even then, it didn’t do well in Faerghus, either. Kingdom nobles don’t like unconventional protagonists, and are even less unfavorable to ambiguous endings. I can’t speak for the theater crowd of Enbarr, but in the Kingdom, those with money and power are very, very conservative. They like things black and white, and not like in Stratagem. In fact, they hated most of those shows, except My Fair Duchess.”

He grinned wider at her open-mouthed surprise.

“Smaller companies go on the road with the same lineup as your opera company, but they use your image and name for their advertisements,” said Sylvain, still smiling. “But I can assure you that none of their Dorothea stand-ins can compare to the original.”

“Oh. Empty flattery.” Dorothea’s engaged smile soured. “You haven’t even heard me sing.”

“Not yet,” Sylvain admitted. “Are you offering me a private performance?”

“No,” said Dorothea, standing up and brushing off her skirt. “Haven’t the time. If you’ll excuse me, I have someone to meet.”

“Oh?” said Sylvain, sliding off the table and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Maybe next time, then.”

“Sure,” said Dorothea, unconvincingly, stalking off.

She rounded the corner, and Sylvain slid into the chair she’d just occupied with a sigh. He looked around idly, and realized the white-haired girl hadn’t stopped glaring at him since he’d opened his mouth. He smiled in apology, ducked his head, and grabbed the closest book on the table.

It was written in a neat, thoughtful hand. Perhaps it was some fastidious scholar’s account of some magical technique. He opened to a random page and started reading.

...fell backwards. The entire cake fell from the table, spilling down her green gown and staining it a smeary fuschia and brown from the frosting’s dye. The young lord’s noble hound, who had been severely observing the scene along with his austere master, suddenly sprang forth like a puppy unleashed with a joyful bark and began licking up the cake, the mess, and the front of her dress. She shrieked in surprise and embarrassment, and was sure the young lord’s ensuing fuss was of anger at the horrible scene. She stood as best she could with the dog happily licking her front, apologizing profusely, only to find that the handsome young lord was laughing and clapping at her antics. He reached out a hand to still his dog, and then another to help her to her feet.

What was this? A romance? Something else? He marked a page with his thumb and turned to look at the front of the book, and then the back. It was bound in a plain leather cover with a crocheted clasp, and no obvious name written anywhere on it. There was no slot for a library slip, either.

He’d just flipped to the front when he heard a voice behind the bookshelf. Two of them. The girl with white hair heard them, too, because she threw her hands up in the air, collected whatever volume she was pouring over, and stormed out of the library with an offended air. Sylvain hoped she’d checked it out first.

“Banned?” said someone, loud enough to hear but quiet enough to escape the librarian’s notice. “You ban books?”

“Claude, don’t be ridiculous. Not every book is suitable for the Monastery library. Surely you can see that.”

“So, erotica. This is about erotica? The church has a stance on erotica, huh? How does that in any way have any bearing on one’s belief in the goddess?”

“I know you’re trying to goad me, and all I can say is that I try to keep a standard in this library. That is all.”

“That just means censorship. That’s all that means. I thought this was a place of learning, not propaganda.”

“Claude,” said Seteth, emerging from behind the shelves in a dignified huff, “that’s enough. Have a good day.”

Seteth, a severe man with a constant ridge between his eyebrows, served as the Archbishop’s right hand and administrative machine behind the operations in Garreg Mach. He also seemed like a meddler and stern stick-in-the-mud, if the five minute speech he gave to the student body last night was any indication. Sylvain tore open the two covers of his book and glued his eyeballs to whatever was on the page to avoid his attention.

It worked. Seteth strode out of the room in a self-righteous fit, his navy cape fluttering behind him.

Claude, chosen successor to the Leicester Alliance to the northeast, appeared just on his heels and stopped short of the library doorway. The golden cape gathered around his shoulders contrasted sharply against his black uniform and brought out the best in his dark hair and skin. He huffed as he gave up his chase on Seteth, and spun back to face the library’s interior. He appraised the empty room, and then sat next to Sylvain.

Claude was something of a scandal in noble circles. He appeared almost out of nowhere with the Crest of Reigan and papers declaring the current Alliance Leader, Duke Reigan, his grandfather. This was a major upset: while the Alliance functioned as every house for itself and the ruling house could change through money and power fluctuations and negotiations rather than blood like the Empire and Kingdom, a living, named heir was a complication to those vying for power upon the current leaders’ passing. It gave the current leader longevity of presence and influence, and was one more thing to work around. 

More perplexing, Claude had a reputation as a wild card. His mannerisms were well-bred, but he had little education about the Church, and, from what Sylvain had just overheard, an almost heretical irrelevance for it.

Sylvain tried to bury himself in his book to avoid him the same way he had Seteth, but Claude wasn’t having any of it. He leaned over the table and half-spoke, half-whispered, “Is it like that everywhere in Fodlan? You guys censor your reading material?”

Sylvain glared at him over the edge of the cover. Claude lifted his eyebrows and shrugged as if to say, “Yeah, hello, I’m talking to you. Who else could I be talking to?”

Sylvain looked up towards the second floor at the librarian. They’d barely started moving their second stack of books to circulation for sorting. Claude and Seteth probably could have started a fistfight and he wouldn’t have noticed.

“Yeah,” said Sylvain, sheltered behind his book even though it had obviously proved useless. “The Kingdom’s probably the worst about it, but everywhere has a strict policy against heresy, and sometimes that includes sex.”

Claude leaned on the table. “And that has what, exactly, to do with the faith?”

Smug little troublemaker. Sylvain looked around the library, stuck his head out to see around the corner to ensure Seteth wasn’t listening, and then lowered his voice.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t know a lot about you, but I know you’re basically a foreigner in your own country.” He gestured to Claude’s skin tone and hair color, “You were raised, I don’t know, in Almyra, maybe? Dunno, but--” 

That brought a smile to Claude’s face, and a pleased light in his green eyes.

“--you can’t ask this stuff out loud. I’m deadly serious. Seteth was trying to escape having a real reason to punish or expel you. He was doing you a favor.” 

“For asking questions?”

“Yes.”

Claude’s nose wrinkled as he sat back in his chair. “Idiocy.”

Sylvain had flashbacks to when his father and mother would backhand him and Miklan for so much as daring to skip a service of worship, or disagree with whatever doctrine their tutors preached at the time. Once, Sylvain and Glenn had received lashings for fooling Felix into thinking that the Goddess was going to appear and punish him for ratting them out when they snuck candy into a service for themselves and Ingrid. She was hungry and didn’t know, they’d told him. Your snitching punished an innocent. That makes you bad in the goddess’ eyes!

Meanwhile, the deep gash across Miklan’s face came from his father upon the news that his son had publicly blasphemed by declaring the holy tradition of Crests as nothing more than arbitrary at best, and trying to prove it by mixing Sylvain’s blood with his own. His reward was his own disownment.

“Look,” said Sylvain. “Learning how the body works in deep detail through the lens of science is against the teachings of the goddess, and so is trying to change it through means of magic. The powers that be get pretty pissed off when people start performing what they call “blood magic” or “dark science”, or even asking about it. Sex ties in because it’s about the creation of life, and the more barbaric ways to prevent it or circumvent it, but still create life. You get it?”

“Yeah,” said Claude, grinning wider, and tilting his head to size up Sylvain. “Yeah, I do. And I think you do, too.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Claude moved in his chair towards Sylvain so that the single, thin braid next to his right ear came into view. He sized up Sylvain with a calculating smile not unlike the one Sylvain had put on, and would put on for daughters of nobles he hadn’t met before. Sylvain wasn’t sure whether he liked Claude, or if he hated him. Either way, he felt like he had been pulled into a covert exchange of secrets- like Claude was a kid about to unleash the contents of a bag of candy he’d swiped to share with Sylvain if Sylvain said the password.

“You’re from the Kingdom, right? One of Dimitri’s?”

“I’m the Gautier heir, if that is what you mean.”

“Sylvain,” said Claude. “Yes. Dimitri mentioned you. Your territory borders Sreng. You must interact with a lot of different kinds of people.”

The border between Sreng and the Kingdom. Fertile, and deeply desired. Everyone claimed they owned it, but more importantly, Sreng swore that their share extended farther than the Kingdom’s official border. Guarding that, and navigating all the tensions it entailed, was what the privilege of holding the Gautier crest granted in political terms. Sylvain’s house was the most unflinching, cautious, and stagnant of the Kingdom’s core houses. In everything but physical being, they were the wall.

“Not really. I mean, merchants from the Alliance, yes, because it’s not that far away, but as for the people of Sreng, only occasionally. That’s the thing about giant walls- not much actually makes it in, and not much that gets in wants to get in, because then it can’t get back out. Everybody hates you, but they also don’t know what they’d do if you weren’t always right there. But I can see them,” clarified Sylvain. “From a distance, obviously. But I do see them.”

“Hm,” said Claude. “Interesting. Tell me,” he said, “You’re pretty candid, especially considering you bleed the Holy Kingdom’s blue. You’re very candid. For example, pointing out someone’s nationality is not on the short list of polite things to do, especially not there.”

“I wanted to help you,” said Sylvain. “You didn’t seem like you had the patience to beat around the bush.”

“You did help me. And you’re right. I didn’t.” Claude grinned. “I like you.”

Sylvain snorted.

“Not so fast, tiger,” he said. “No need to give it all away before the first date.”

It was Claude’s turn to snort. Then, he scooted in, and kept his voice even lower.

“Seriously, now. Do you think it’s bullshit? That the Church doesn’t like the people of Fodlan thinking for themselves?”

Shit. Sylvain had known Claude for five minutes, and already the two of them were committing a crime punishable by death: talking shit about the highest power in the land. Sylvain felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Now, now. That’s something only a heretic would say,” Sylvain said, evenly. “And considering all the constant drama and quibbling I’m sure disagreements of piety and culture brings the differing houses of your Alliance, one almost can’t blame them,” muttered Sylvain.

That was all Claude was going to get, but apparently it was good enough. His eyes lit up again, and his grin grew wider. 

“Hm. Hm! I didn’t know Kingdom leaders could do subtlety. It’s very refreshing.”

“That’s not the great compliment you think it is.”

“Oh, but isn’t it?”

Sylvain grinned.

“Dimitri and his honest manners are the pride and joy of the Kingdom,” he said. “For those of us unfortunates who can’t follow his example, our only solace comes from knowing we can produce better conversations and introduce new and improved forms of flattery. You pay me great favor by overlooking my flaws, m’lord.”

Claude snickered.

Sylvain did, too. But then, he stopped smiling. 

“But seriously. If you’re going to be open with your disagreements with the Church, what the hell are you doing here? Because unless your mission is to get yourself excommunicated or worse, there’s nothing for you at the Officer’s Academy.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but “or worse” almost happened to me and my steadfast companions last night, so I don’t think it really matters how concerned I am by any dangers from above, considering that the ones below are just as likely.”

Sylvain winced. His prince almost died, again, and he was nowhere near him. But that was the tragedy of being a lookout from the wall- he could only defend from frontal assaults, and witness everything else from far away. The larger machinations of the world and its weather weren’t within his power to change.

“Yeah. I’m glad it didn’t.”

Claude nodded, and then got to his feet with an exaggerated stretch.

“Yes. Me, too. But! You know. No sense in looking away once you’ve already seen what you aren’t supposed to. Right?”

Claude headed for the door with a confident swagger and a wink before strolling around the corner and lingering in the doorway.

“I’ll be seeing you around, Sylvain,” said Claude. “It’s a great thing, to make friends with students from other houses. I think we’ll get along like a house on fire. Really burn this place down, if we put our minds to it.”

Sylvain’s head shot up from his book. Suddenly, he was sweating, and he was certain he could smell burning meat. His heart hammered in his ears.

“What? What did you say?” he asked, but Claude was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh... still getting through some setup. But I couldn’t resist a Claude introduction. He should have had some supports with Sylvain....


End file.
